> yeah fridmann would've gotten a lot of 'anti' votes if that had been part of the poll

― some dude, Sunday, October 23, 2011 6:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

My off-the-dome 'anti' top 3:

3. Jeff Lynne2. Joe Thomas1. Walter Afanasieff, who repeatedly employs every cliched production frill imagineable in failed attempts to build emotion as a song progresses (thundering snare hits! weepy bowed orchestral strings! raising the key and slowing down just before the last verse!) for the likes of Celion Dion, Michael Bolton, and Mariah Carey.

I like how lush Lynne's production can be, but can we lose that synthetic sheen that drapes everything, all the buzzy synths, etc.? It's like the finished product was processed through a volume compressor before being pressed to disc. Agreed that aesthetic worked for ELO (although even there it was needlessly gimmicky - did "I Can't Get It Out Of My Head" really need the vocals processed through a wah-wah pedal?), but it's all wrong for his '80s-and-beyond production for others.